Client Alerts

On 27 March 2018 the Bulgarian Parliament published a Bill for amendment and supplementation of the Energy Act ("EA") and the Act on Energy from Renewable Sources ("AERS"), which in practice repeals the RES and highly efficient cogeneration ("CoGen") support schemes. The most critical amendments include (i) the repeal of the currently fixed preferential prices ("FiTs") by way of introduction of a two component payment scheme and (ii) the replacing of the mandatory obligation of "National Electricity Company" EAD ("NEK") or the licensed End Suppliers to purchase the entire generated RES electricity under long term power-purchase agreements (“PPAs“) to the Security of the Energy System Fund...

1. General Criminal Liability Of The Companies Under Romanian Legislation

General Conditions of Criminal Liability of Companies

All legal persons (with the exception of the state and public authorities) are liable for criminal offenses perpetrated while carrying out their main activity or when acting in the interest or on behalf of the legal person. Public institutions are not liable for criminal offenses perpetrated while carrying out an activity that cannot be subject to the private sector. The criminal liability of a legal person does not exclude the criminal liability of the natural person which contributed to the offense.

To counteract tax evasion, Polish authorities have recently introduced legislation (the Act) and digital systems allowing tax authorities to analyze banking systems, search for potential fraud, and block suspicious bank accounts. Effective 30 April 2018, the new rules may have an adverse effect on escrow accounts, M&A closings, and real estate transactions in Poland. This Client Alert explains how the Act works and suggests workarounds to help avoid its potentially negative effects.

A new EU Regulation, which will take effect on 3 December 2018, provides for borderless online shopping.(1) Traders are obliged to treat online customers equally, regardless of which EU-member state they come from. Geo-blocking will be abolished in many cases. However, digital content protected under copyright law and some other services are not yet affected by the Regulation. Following the abolition of roaming charges and the adoption of the Portability-Regulation, this new Regulation is the next step in contributing to the European Union strategy of creating a properly functioning digital internal market without unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on a...

On 8 February 2018, the Bulgarian Competition Protection Commission ("CPC") issued a Decision in a Competition Advocacy proceeding initiated in 2017 for the assessment of conformity with Competition law of the legal framework applicable to heat energy supply legislation. The Competition Advocacy proceeding analyzed the respective sections of the Energy Act ("EA"), the Heat Energy Supply Ordinance (1) and the General Terms and Conditions of the heating companies.